Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment Review
This book exposes a serious, increasingly encroaching problem in our society, the ability of corporations, insensitive to personal responsibility, to run amok over our way of life. In this case, BIG CORPORATE AGRICULTURE has penetrated our society and is shoving down our throats stuff called food--and we pay for it in so many ways. More disease, more environmental degradation, more political maneuvering--all leading to incredible personal and societal costs.
The book is engaging. It tells the personal battles of some incredible citizens, fighting almost impossible odds against this invasive cancer in our society that, at its root, begins with corporate greed woven into a citizenry who are seriously uninformed about the food we eat.
The book is engaging but could have used some serious editing to cut the repetition. Important messages like this need to be more to the point if they are intended to cause change.
I fully support the author's laudable argument for more sustainable farming practices and local food production and marketing. But, he omitted one important assumption. Even if, ideally, we could return to sustainable farm practices, largely dependent on family farms and local marketing, it would eventually be self-limiting. We (by `we', I mean all the world's peoples) do not have the land and water resources to produce for our rapidly growing population the kind of food that we now eat, as long as we sustain our voracious appetite for animal protein-based foods.
I am a product of the family farm (milking cows) and began more than a half century ago a research career promoting the animal protein-based food that we produced. But our research program eventually produced findings that challenged my naivete. I learned that, collectively, we would need far less of the earth's resources, achieve far greater health at much lower disease care costs and reduce environmental degradation, if only we were to develop a dietary lifestyle that depended on our use of whole plant-based foods.
I firmly believe that the message in this book, along with a similar message in Fast Food Nation, would go much further if we altered our preferences for food, thus reducing our need for the very food that allows factory farming even to exist.
Just remember this: advanced heart disease, diabetes, obesity, several autoimmune diseases and other 'nuisance' ailments cannot only be prevented but actually be stopped in their tracks and CURED. Moreover, cancer also can be experimentally reversed by the same strategy--this was extensively investigated in our laboratory and published.
Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment Feature
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Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment Overview
Swine flu. Bird flu. Unusual concentrations of cancer and other diseases. Massive fish kills from flesh-eating parasites. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly E-coli bacterial contamination.
Recent public health crises raise urgent questions about how our animal-derived food is raised and brought to market. In Animal Factory, bestselling investigative journalist David Kirby exposes the powerful business and political interests behind large-scale factory farms, and tracks the far-reaching fallout that contaminates our air, land, water, and food.
In this thoroughly researched book, Kirby follows three families and communities whose lives are utterly changed by immense neighboring animal farms. These farms (known as “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations,” or CAFOs), confine thousands of pigs, dairy cattle, and poultry in small spaces, often under horrifying conditions, and generate enormous volumes of fecal and biological waste as well as other toxins. Weaving science, politics, law, big business, and everyday life, Kirby accompanies these families in their struggles against animal factories. A North Carolina fisherman takes on pig farms upstream to preserve his river, his family’s life, and his home. A mother in a small Illinois town pushes back against an outsized dairy farm and its devastating impact. And a Washington State grandmother becomes an unlikely activist when her home is invaded by foul odors and her water supply is compromised by runoff from leaking lagoons of cattle waste.
Animal Factory is an important book about our American food system gone terribly wrong---and the people who are fighting to restore sustainable farming practices and save our limited natural resources.
Recent public health crises raise urgent questions about how our animal-derived food is raised and brought to market. In Animal Factory, bestselling investigative journalist David Kirby exposes the powerful business and political interests behind large-scale factory farms, and tracks the far-reaching fallout that contaminates our air, land, water, and food.
In this thoroughly researched book, Kirby follows three families and communities whose lives are utterly changed by immense neighboring animal farms. These farms (known as “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations,” or CAFOs), confine thousands of pigs, dairy cattle, and poultry in small spaces, often under horrifying conditions, and generate enormous volumes of fecal and biological waste as well as other toxins. Weaving science, politics, law, big business, and everyday life, Kirby accompanies these families in their struggles against animal factories. A North Carolina fisherman takes on pig farms upstream to preserve his river, his family’s life, and his home. A mother in a small Illinois town pushes back against an outsized dairy farm and its devastating impact. And a Washington State grandmother becomes an unlikely activist when her home is invaded by foul odors and her water supply is compromised by runoff from leaking lagoons of cattle waste.
Animal Factory is an important book about our American food system gone terribly wrong—and the people who are fighting to restore sustainable farming practices and save our limited natural resources.
“Kirby combines the narrative urgency of Sinclair's novel with the investigative reporting of Schlosser's book—Animal Factory is nonfiction, but reads like a thriller. There's no political pleading or ideological agitprop in this book; it's remarkably fair-minded, both sober and sobering. Like Sinclair's and Schlosser's work, it has the potential to change the collective American mind about contemporary food issues.”—NPR, “Books We Like”
“Nature did not intend for animals to live and die in a factory assembly line. In David Kirby’s startling investigation Animal Factory, he gives a human face to the terrible cost our health and environment pays for this so-called ‘cheap food’. This is a story that is seldom told and rarely with such force and eloquence.”—Alice Waters
“Animal Factory, by David Kirby, documents the scandal of today’s industrial food animal production system in the same compelling way Upton Sinclair alerted Americans to the abuses of the meat packing industry in his 1906 The Jungle. The well being of animals produced for human consumption, the fate of rural communities, the health of farm workers, and the protection of the environment are daily compromised for the sake of profit.”—Robert S. Lawrence, M.D., Director, of the Center for a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
“Sometimes it seems that the only people who truly support CAFOs, or animal factory farms, are those who stand to profit from them. This is made brilliantly clear in Animal Factory, David Kirby’s exposé into the business. Animal Factory follows the stories of three people trying to fight against big dairy and pork operations. These stories are deeply disturbing and might actually make readers sick. The writing is brilliant, the people profiled are inspirational in their activism, and the topic is one that so many people remain blissfully ignorant of. Everyone would benefit from reading this book and becoming aware of where their food comes from.”—The San Francisco Book Review
“Animal Factory is not a book about animal welfare, or nutrition, or fair labor practices. Instead, it is something that concerns us all, no matter what our political persuasion—the long-term health of people and communities directly affected by factory farms. The scandal of industrial food-animal production is a direct link to the health care debate, making 'Animal Factory' all the more urgent. Mr. Kirby has produced a powerful, important book to all those who care about their family's health.”—The Washington Times
“Animal Factory tells how big agribusiness' industrial meat production is leaving our communities foul with unhealthy air, awash in untreated sewage, and increasingly buffeted by bacteria made resistant to the antibiotics. Anyone in search of why America's health care system is going bankrupt will find part of the answer in these pages.”—David Wallinga, M.D., Food and Health Director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
“David Kirby’s book, Animal Factory, is a beautifully written account of the danger industrial meat and dairy production represents to our health, environment and democratic process. In a unique and captivating way, Kirby reveals the consequences of animal factories through the eyes of the citizen advocates who have fought the long and hard battle to civilize the barbaric and often criminal behavior of the meat barons. Rick Dove, Karen Hudson, Helen Reddout, Chris Peterson, Don Webb and others featured in the book are real American heroes. Their stories are compelling, true and engaging. The time has come to end the greedy and destructive practices of animal factories. As the readers of Kirby’s book will learn, nature’s clock is ticking and much is at stake for the planet and all of its inhabitants. Each page of this book is filled with powerful information. It has all the makings of a number one best seller.”—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“This book puts a human face on a well hidden national scandal: the effects of large-scale raising of animals on the health and well being of farm workers and their families, local communities, the animals themselves, and the environment which we all share. By examining how CAFOs affect the lives of real people, Kirby makes clear why we must find healthier and more sustainable ways to produce meat in America.”—Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, and member of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production
“Animal Factory is a compelling narrative in the tradition of Upton Sinclair, whose 1906 novel The Jungle led to changes in the meat-packing industry. It isn't a novel, but it moves along with the urgency of a pot-boiler. What Kirby has done in this journalistic account of animal factory operations across the country is draw back the curtains that have carefully screened from the public the untidy secrets about how meat is produced on a large scale in this country. You'll read about the cramped feeding operations where animals are fattened for market, the pharmaceuticals that go into feed, the alarming practices used to dispose of feces and urine and how animal byproducts sometimes wind up in feed.”—The Charolette Observer
“An environment in which there are lakes of putrid slush, foul odors wafting in the breeze and entire rivers turning orange may sound like something out of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, but it’s a reality for many people who live near industrial farms—the result of keeping thousands of animals in one place in order to keep prices low. In his latest book, Animal Factory, David Kirby follows three unlikely grassroots activists who have opposed big agriculture, from small community protests to the national sustainable movement.”—Leonad Lopate, WNYC-FM, NPR Affiliate, New York City
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Customer Reviews
Where's the Beef? - Manny Hoppe - Muscatine, IA USA
I'm still waiting for this decade's version of "The Jungle". This book is not bad, lots of relevant data, but still lots more missing. The other thing is that this book will need to be updated at least every year or so.
I'll read the next one if there is one.
A shocking investiagtion of CAFOs and those who fight against them - Sacramento Book Review - Sacramento, CA
Sometimes it seems that the only people who truly support CAFOs, or animal factory farms, are those who stand to profit from them. This is made brilliantly clear in //Animal Factory,// David Kirby's exposé into the business. To most people, especially those who are forced to live in their vicinity, CAFOs are a major source of environmental pollution. //Animal Factor// follows the stories of three people trying to fight against big dairy and pork operations. These stories are deeply disturbing and might actually make readers sick. Animal waste from manure "lagoons" pollute water supplies when they overflow or are breached; excessive levels of nitrates make people gravely ill, while the animal feces invite infestations of algae, parasites, and protozoa that kill millions of fish and can leave open wounds on people who come in contact with the water. Despite the author's claim of neutrality on the subject, readers will undoubtedly walk away from this book firmly in the anti-CAFO corner. The writing is brilliant, the people profiled are inspirational in their activism, and the topic is one that so many people remain blissfully ignorant of. Everyone would benefit from reading this book and becoming aware of where their food comes from.
Any library strong in animal rights issues must have this - Midwest Book Review - Oregon, WI USA
ANIMAL FACTORY; THE LOOMING THREAT OF INDUSTRIAL PIG, DAIRY, AND POULTRY FARMS TO HUMANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT provides a powerful account of industrial meat production and factory farms, documenting their dangers to human health. It's investigative journalism at its best, with author David Kirby approaching factory farms from a different perspective and considering the lasting costs of their choices. Any library strong in animal rights issues must have this.
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